The American flag used to have 15 stripes.

U.S. History

M ost Americans know the U.S. originally had 13 states, which are represented by the 13 red and white stripes on Old Glory. So, then, why did one of the early American flags — indeed the very version that inspired the national anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner" — have 15 stripes?

The answer has to do with the country's rapid expansion during the late 18th and 19th centuries. Following the Flag Act of 1794, which George Washington signed into law on January 13 of that year, the flag was changed to feature 15 stars and 15 stripes instead of 13 each, in honor of Vermont and Kentucky joining the nation as the 14th and 15th states, respectively.

When five more states were admitted over the next two decades, however, the logic behind this design revealed itself as faulty. The Flag Act of 1818 remedied this by adopting the modern convention of having stripes represent the original 13 states and stars represent the current number of states.

It was the 15-stripe version of the flag that inspired Francis Scott Key to write what later became the U.S. national anthem, after he witnessed the Stars and Stripes flying over Baltimore's Fort McHenry during the War of 1812. The current version of the American flag was adopted on July 4, 1960, following the 1959 admission of Hawaii as the 50th U.S. state. In 2007, that design became the longest-lasting American flag; its predecessor, which was designed after Alaska became the 49th U.S. state (also in 1959), lasted only a year.

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By the Numbers

Years the 48-star flag was in use (1912-1959)

Country whose flag isn't rectangular or square (Nepal)

Did you know?

Only the first verse of "The Star-Spangled Banner" is traditionally sung.

Anyone who's been to a baseball game knows that the last line of the national anthem is "O'er the land of the free and the home of the brave." Except it isn't: Francis Scott Key's poem "The Star-Spangled Banner," which was originally titled "Defence of Fort M'Henry," has three more verses that are rarely performed, perhaps because the song is already considered difficult to sing as it is. Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. added an unofficial fifth verse at the beginning of the Civil War that anticipated the emancipation of enslaved Americans, including the lines, "By the millions unchained when our birthright was gained / We will keep her bright blazon forever unstained!"

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